Twitter tools like Reverb help organizations to analyze hashtags and tweets. Screenshot courtesy of RJI.

This week we explore some of the tools offered by Twitter to help news organizations harness the platform, and we learn about a new social network called This., which hopes to encourage sharing of only high-quality content.

"By limiting people to sharing one thing a day, it forces the sharer to think very carefully about what is worthy of that high bar [of social media sharing], and it gives them the opportunity as a sharer a kind of new tool they don't have yet -- to be able to say, 'This is something that's really special; I share lots of things on lots of other platforms, but this is something that's really special.'" -Andrew Golis

PART 1: Twitter tools

As a product marketing manager at Twitter, Erica Anderson helps the product team identify features that might be useful specifically for publishers. We hear from Anderson about some of the latest tools on offer to help publishers integrate Twitter content and to disseminate video via the platform.Reporting by Gabriel Jefferson, Rachel Wise and Reuben Stern.[To skip directly to this segment in YouTube, click here.]

PART 2: This.

A new social platform called This. aims to elevate the quality of what people read by letting users share only one link per day. Founder Andrew Golis explains how it works and how the concept could benefit publishers.Reporting by Katy Mersmann, Reuben Stern and Rachel Wise.[To skip directly to this segment in YouTube, click here.]

For more information:

The New York Times reports that journalists and others in the media industry have been “jockeying for the exclusive invitations” to the new network.

However, as Nieman Lab reports, the fact that the platform does not currently exist in a mobile friendly version might conflict with its goal of providing an ideal lean-back experience.

Either way, the real success of This. isn’t necessarily the creation of a mass social platform but instead that it enables The Atlantic to offer a daily email newsletter that is “curated by a whip-smart community, as opposed to a lone editor,” writes Pando Daily’s David Holmes.

Reuben Stern is the deputy director of the Futures Lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and host and co-producer of the weekly Futures Lab video update.

The Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Futures Lab video update features a roundup of fresh ideas, techniques and developments to help spark innovation and change in newsrooms across all media platforms. Visit the RJI website for the full archive of Futures Lab videos, or download the iPad app to watch the show wherever you go. You can also sign up to receive email notification of each new episode.

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